During the soldering process of a printed wiring board the wiring surface of the board is coated with a flux prior to application of the solder. The flux, typically a rosin type flux in an alcohol base, helps to prepare the printed wiring board for soldering by cleaning oxides and other contaminants from the wiring surface of the printed wiring board. One of the widely used methods of applying flux to the surface is by spraying the flux on to the surface at a spray flux station. As can be appreciated, the flux applied to the board surface must itself be free of contaminants, and the flux station must be clean if the flux is to properly prepare the surface for soldering.
Presently the flux station of most soldering systems is cleaned on a daily basis. After the flux is drained from the flux station tank, the equipment is manually cleaned by using solvents such as 1,1,1 trichloroethane . However, this method of cleaning is time consuming, and labor intensive resulting in prolonged shut down of the soldering system.